RESOURCES

Don't Watch The News ...to BeHappy!

I know, I know … this is crazy, right? Well, I really want to make a point here. For years I have joked that “The News”, as it’s called, should really be called “The Bad News", since nearly everything that’s put on The News is negative. In fact, I heard someone recently say that CNN stands for "Continual Negative News". I thought that was funny, and sadly, pretty much true.

Think about it. What makes the headlines? It’s typically the murders, rapes, plane crashes, acts of terrorism, escalating fuel prices, plummeting home prices, etc. It’s enough to make us feel terrible about life.

For some reason, humans find this more entertaining. And that’s why the media keeps producing it - because it sells – and makes more money for the news media.

A while back I did a little experiment where I stopped watching The News completely. I didn’t watch it on television (I don’t watch TV anyway – so this was easy), I didn’t read the newspaper, and I changed the station when the news came on the radio.

An amazing thing happened. I felt a lot happier everyday. It seems that when I stopped being constantly reminded about all the negative stuff going on in our world, I felt better about life.

So, the challenge of this little exercise is to be able to keep up with important information, while reducing the negative messages we receive constantly from the usual (popular) media outlets.

Believe me, it’s possible. I get all the information I choose to get. Not only that, because of the constant “push” of the bad news, you’ll still hear about everything you need to know – especially if you do watch TV like most people.

One source to try is The Good News Network (www.goodnewsnetwork.org) which is, as is probably obvious from the name, a network focused only on good news. Here’s a quote from one of their listeners, which makes my “don’t watch the news” point exactly:

”Everyday I get to work in the morning, get my coffee, jump online and read the news. Everyday I go home sad and depressed … then I found your site and after reading the first story I immediately felt my spirits lift and I never went home sad again. Reading ordinary news we get a sense that that’s all there is, but your site reminds us the world is not as bad as the news would lead us to believe. Thank you for everything.”

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